I’ve really loved chatting to Rosie this week she’s taken to ringing me when she’s driving to work or uni and she’s done a lot of driving this week. She also sent me an email that made me laugh:

This may be on our front door when we get married

the weekend to be:
Saturday – is going to be a rest day, sort of, it’s my Dad’s birthday next Tuesday and because of the business of normal life we’re celebrating early.

Sunday – I’ll be found at Arun Community Church preparing for our Sunday morning meeting. This week it’s a Kickstart Sunday for Children and they’ll be having a programme of games and teaching just for them. Back in the main hall Andy Harsant will be leading the worship and Stew Smith will be continuing the Come Dine With Me theme. It all starts at 10:30am in the sports hall of The Littlehampton Academy.

any planned trips next week: Yes, on Wednesday morning I’m heading up to Lincoln to join the Dave Bell Band for 3 days on a UK tour where they need a monitor engineer.

album/artist of the week: It’s not been a particularly strong music week for me. I’ve enjoyed a bit of Nerina Pallot’s “Fires” [iTunes] and well that’s really been that.

blog post of the week: There’s not been a unique post that I can share with you however I’ve been holding two post series in reserve for exactly these occasions. This weeks posts are from the Rethinking Youth Ministry blog and deals with the subject of teen suicide. Part 1 and Part 2

Apple's iPad - is it worth it?

So last November I finally made the jump and bought myself Apple’s much touted table, the iPad. And since then I’ve used it in conjunction with my laptop. Three months has proved the perfect time to fully evaluate everything it does and make some conclusions.

For me it’s main purpose has been to supplement my laptop either:

• When I go to freelance jobs – most of the time I arrive at an event and only use iTunes with some usage of Safari, Facebook and Twitter thrown in (if I’m lucky enough to get Wi-Fi in the venue)
• When I go to see Rosie down in Newport.

I’ve found I’ve used it a lot more than that though and it comes with me nearly everywhere I go.

What I love

Keynote running on the iPad

For me, it has to be about the “Apps“ out the box it’s a great PDA but iPod functionality, Contacts, Calendar and Email doesn’t really provide a compelling reason to buy an iPad. I’ve not added too many apps (well, in truth it’s probably far more than I’d thought) and the ones I’ve found most useful are:

• Apple Pages – it’s just a well thought out application I use iWork on my laptop and I’m familiar with all it’s controls
• Apple Keynote – once again it’s just well thought through. I can work out on a presentation on either my iPad or laptop and then transfer to the other device to continue editing or for giving a presentation
• RDP Lite – owning an iPad and administering Microsoft Windows servers can go hand in hand. With this app I can log on to either of ACC’s servers and look after our Active Directory users and folder.
• Friendly for Facebook – Mark Zuckerberg hasn’t announced an official Facebook for iPad app, nor has he made the iPhone version “universal” so that it supports iPad’s enhanced screen resolution. So, third party developers have come to the rescue with what is effectively a skin for the Facebook Touch website. In my conclusion Friendly is amongst the best.
• Twitter – Not everyone loves the Twitter iPad app but I like it’s universal look and how it implements Mentions and Direct Messages.

I also love the fact I can have it locked to landscape all the time. All the apps I use on it day to day just seem to look better and give me better control in landscape.

What I’m not so keen on

You either need a Mi-Fi or the 3G model

I have found only one thing I don’t like and I can only really blame myself. The lack of 3G is actually a bigger deal than I’d thought – Wi-Fi is good but it isn’t everywhere. If you have a laptop you simply plug in a mobile broadband dongle and off you go – however you can’t do that with an iPad. Of course you could buy a mobile wifi device but that’s another device that requires a power adapter to charge a tiny battery (that lasts about 5 hours if you use it).

What’s actually pretty disappointing

iBooks isn't going to replace these

I still don’t get iBooks – it promises so much, but doesn’t deliver. Likewise, I’m not the biggest fan of multitasking but that’s primarily because I don’t see the need for multitasking on a mobile device though on the flip side Apple’s implementation of it is one of the best around and I can easily close applications unlike on a device such as the BlackBerry or Android.

What I’m hoping for:

Would Spotify work on the iPad?

American tech blogger, Terry White, sums it up as this:

When I got my iPad back in April I questioned whether I could get by sometimes with just using my iPad instead of my MacBook Pro.

It’s a journey that I’m also on and I think I’m further down the road. I can leave my MacBook Pro at home 3 days out of 4 without compromising my connectivity or functionality. I hope that Apple pick a direction for iBooks that makes it ground breaking as I think they’re playing catchup to Amazon’s kindle.

I also hope the much rumoured subscription model newspaper/magazine hybrid does arrive, at a sensible price, as I think it’ll drive content use across multiple apps – I, for one, would certainly try it out as I think the idea of an application that downloads an electronic newspaper daily sounds great.

The second thing I really hope happens doesn’t involve the iPad at all – it involves my iPhone. With the announcement of the much rumoured Verizon iPhone a new feature was revealed in “Personal Hotspot” which allows your iPhone (3GS or 4 only) to act as a MiFi device as long as you have internet tethering. With that you have to be careful who your provider is – I know that here in the UK original iPhone carrier o2 charge £15 a month while Orange and Vodafone charge £5 per 500mb, 3 offer all you can eat data regardless of whether it’s on handset or tethering. I can’t tell you for either T-Mobile or Tesco but historically T-Mobile used to charge £7.50 for Web and Walk Plus which added a tethering option. Over in the USA tethering from AT&T costs $20.

The final things I’d love to see are:

• A native iPad Spotify app. iTunes and it’s associated store are great but there are times I need that instant fix of a song but don’t necessarily want to own it. This type of app may also drive usage of Spotify premium until Apple launches the much rumoured subscription model.
• A better version of Allen & Heath’s iLive Tweak app that rivals Yamaha’s Stage Edit application as this directly relates to my business.

the weekend to be:
Saturday – I’m up early ready to head off to Southampton ready to provide some production at an orchestral event and then once it finishes I’ll either:

• Be heading home for a quick 20 minute nap before heading out in the evening to celebrate my Mum’s return from Uganda
• Be heading for the offices of Links International to finish off the commissioning of their new Small Business Server

Sunday – Is off to Church with a regular setup where Simon Parkin will be leading through our musical worship and Andy Harsant will be talking to the adults continuing our “Come Dine With Me” series.

any planned trips next week: No, not for next week however just wait…

album/artist of the week: I guess one of the side effects of having some time away from the office and a long drive to Redditch is you get to listen to some music. First up is Nerina Pallot with her “Fires” [iTunes] the song writing is just superb.Then I’ve been indulging in some pop-punk with both Bowling For Soup’s “A Hangover You Don’t Deserve” [iTunes] and Simple Plan’s “iTunes Live From Montereal” [iTunes]. Then my discovery of the week was, embarrassingly, a country album called “A Coal Miner’s Daughter: A Tribute To Loretta Lynn” [iTunes].

blog post of the week: It’s been a good week so far as blog posts go. And it’s been hard to pick a single stand out article but after much deliberation I’ve chosen Youthblog’s “Team, volunteers and vision” as it’s something I’m walking through at the minute. As he writes:

It is hard I know to recruit volunteers BUT when inviting people into a vision …and a team that is working with that vision, it becomes significantly more achievable.

It’s not completely been about Resound though – with the changes to the office the new VoIP phone system has been arrived and will go through a basic testing before the numbers port over. Then in my free time I’ve been tidying and sorting my home work space, sorting out banking and savings and watching a huge amount of the American version of The Office.

the weekend to be:
Saturday – marks the start of a Rock and Roll weekend. Along with Moss and Roy I’ll be engineering for Wolfpack over in Chichester. In Moss’ wise words

It’s a chance to make a bit of noise

Sunday – we finally get to the big event. It’s the third Resound, and this time it’s on home turf. As a Church and small production team we’ve been putting our all in to it – we think it’s going to rock! Come the evening I’ll be mixing monitors but first off it’s our normal service. Jon Jolly will be leading the musical worship at our 10:30 service and Becca Jupp will be talking to the adults as we continue our “Come Dine With Me” series. Then doors open for Resound at 17:30 with Martin Smith + Band taking to the stage around 18:30.

any planned trips next week: Yes, I’m off up to Redditch with Moss to visit SSE Audio to evaluate L’Acoustic’s KARA line array for potential use when The Littlehampton Academy is rebuilt.

album/artist of the week: I’ve sort of got back to my pop-punk roots revisiting Texas’ finest Bowling for Soup and their albums “Let’s Do It For Johnny!” [iTunes], “Drunk Enough To Dance” [iTunes], and “A Hangover You Don’t Deserve” [iTunes].

blog post of the week: sneaking in to this weeks top blog post is Jon Birch’s ASBO Jesus which is an irreverent look at the Christian faith. I’ll include the image below but please check his website out here.

Back in April of last year I wrote a post called “Sing, Sing Like You’ve Never Sung” I wrote it in response to a comment on a previous post dealing with an awkward line of a song and it always worked to an extent but I always thought I could do better. When I first wrote the post I wussed out and instead of writing the post I should have I took a generic route. The original comment was was:

I was actually listening to Riot! last night, as I do very often, and I still haven’t managed to squeeze out a christian message from it! I know they ARE christians, and the only song I can visibly see it in is Hallelujah. On Brand New Eyes they sing:
‘The truth never set me free so I’ll do it myself’
That just goes against everything I believe:
‘I can’t set myself free so I have to look to truth (Jesus) for freedom’.
Help!!! Where are their Christian lyrics/messages/meanings!

With the pre-Christmas announcement that Josh and Zac Farro have now left Paramore and the resulting chaos and rumors that it’s caused. It’s perhaps time to revisit the post I wrote and rewrite it with “Brand New Eyes“.*

The Truth Never Set Me Free

the truth never set me free, so I did it myself

This one line has always been controversial for those professing a Christian faith and it’s not surprising why. When taken literally it goes against everything we believe. In John 8:32 (NIV) it says:

then you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free

We struggle to process it – Surely the truth is the truth is the truth and in our understanding the truth sets us free. However there’s the truth and the truth.What if we got our emphasis wrong? And rather than looking at the we decided to focus on truth – it’s a simple change of emphasis but it changes the meaning.

It was no secret that during the recording and touring cycle of Riot! Josh and Hayley dated – initially in secret then more publicly before breaking up and, almost, taking the band with it. What if “the truth never set me free, so I did it myself” wasn’t a line to disregard faith, instead it symbolises the relationship with Josh going public and ultimately ending.

Writing cures the soul
In a recent interview, with MTV in America, Hayley revealed that a lot of the most recent album was indeed written about Hayley and Josh’s relationship. Likewise, Hayley in the past has written with her heart on her sleeve about issues that have effected her or her friends. So, here are two conclusions I’ve come to:

1. All lyric writers write from their own experiences. One of the most lyrically powerful albums I’ve heard in the past few years was released by, the now defunct Chichester Indie-Pop band, Retrofect. It’s called “New York Kiss” and it’s all about the years they spent at college – friendships, relationships and death are all dealt with in an intelligent yet sensitive way by principal lyricist Joel Horne. Hayley clearly wrote what she needed to at that moment in time.
2. On the flip side I completely get why Josh felt he needed to leave. It can’t have been enjoyable to play night after night knowing the songs you’re playing are about you. Since he and Hayley dated he’s met someone new and consequently married them and that’s got to be odd for him, his wife and Hayley. I do, however, think they could have worked through it – album #4  wasn’t, in a parallel world where he hadn’t left Paramore, going to be Brand New Eyes part 2. The emotions involved with the current set of songs would have gone and the songs would have been songs. However the bang have posted a recent video showing the writing process of a song called “In The Mourning” – is it about Josh and Zac leaving the band? Well, time will tell but please note mourning and not morning.

It’s not all good
While the band have done their best to keep the fans in the loop some things the Farro brothers said do have a resonance to them. Somewhen between the release of “Brand New Eyes” in September 2009 and January 2010 the band switched management from a small, predominantly Christian,  artist management company based in Nashville, TN called Showdown Management** to an Orlando based company, Fly South Music.

Reportedly this change has caused communications issues between Love146, who the band have previously supported, and the band.

There is hope
We already know that the band has chosen to keep going, initially as a three piece with session musicians, in the shape of Justin York, Taylor’s brother who’s currently a touring member of Relient K and former guitarist of Tait, and Josh Freese for the South America tour. I would think that at least one of the session musicians will join full time. The recent MTV interview also gave space for Hayley to reiterate her and, additionally, Taylor’s faith.

And they’re not the first band to loose a member. Two bands who have been in similar situations are Foo Fighters and No Doubt. A quick check of wikipedia reveals that there is entire page devoted to Foo Fighters band members and that Pat Smear has been in and out of the band with a worrying amount of  frequency. Yet at no point has the work load or the song quality dropped.

No Doubt on the other hand have been through a similar situation – front woman Gwen Stefani and bass player Tony Kanal had a relationship – when the relationship ended the following album “Tragic Kingdom” was full of songs about the relationship including the huge hit “Don’t Speak”. Does this all sound vaguely familiar? They, somehow, pulled through with relationships restored along the way – although they did go on a four year hiatus but are now back and writing, recording and performing together.

If you’re Christian perhaps now is the time to pray for these guys and other bands who are pushing the mainstream. They carry with them a huge amount of influence.

* - I’m sorry I didn’t mean to make that joke it just sort of happened.
** – A friend married a member of Showdown’s staff and additionally another friends band have a management deal with them

I sometimes make music

Anyway, it’s been a busy week that I think I’d summarise as both constructive and positive. For me it’s sort of been about three things really:

1. Budgets – it’s near the start of 2011 and time to write my technology budgets for ACC. I’ll probably blog more on it in the coming weeks but I’ve got a vision where I want to take things and it’s getting people on that journey.
2. Steve Chalke – I was lucky enough to be doing production for Steve Chalke’s visit to Central Hall where he explained Faithwork’s response to David Cameron’s Big Society. I’m sure that Jon Jolly will blog some of his thoughts soon enough.
3. The ACC Future – We had our 2011 vision evening at ACC which was great to get everyone on the same page, in addition to that there are going to be some structural changes taking place at the ACC office in March. There are a couple of other bits that I’ll update people with when the timing is right.

At Central Hall for "The Big Response"

Perhaps one of the unexpected highlights for me was finally catching up with my good friend Andy Rowley over in Nashville via Skype – Rosie and I hope to go over and see them sometime this year. Then on Firday my mum headed off to Uganda where she’ll be teaching at Wellspring for the next two weeks

any planned trips next week: No is the honest truth. There will be quite a bit of planning ready for Resound a week today.

album/artist of the week: It has been a Paramore week I’ve been revisiting “Brand New Eyes” [iTunes] and constructively thinking about it.

blog post of the week: While I would really love you to jump in to either my guest post for Jon Jolly [here] or my Expand Worship post [here] I’m going to recommend that you check out Terry White’s post about 24 hours using only his iPad and not his laptop – I find it interesting as it’s a direction I’m following. As Terry says:

When I got my iPad back in April I questioned whether I could get by sometimes with just using my iPad instead of my MacBook Pro. Since that time a lot more Apps have come out and a lot more functionality is there.

Check the full article out here.

I take it as an extra special privilege to be asked to write a blog post for Jon as, unlike any of the previous guests, I’m no longer involved in any direct youth work. Which, has posed quite a problem for me as I figure out quite what I write about.

I stopped doing any face to face youth work at the end of the summer term in 2008 and from then on in I’ve become “Tech Guy”. I support the technology side of Arun Community Church’s summer play schemes and have made guest appearances at the 11 – 14s youth group when they are low on adult numbers. I’ve had the chance to meet with Jon over a coffee or two and wrestle through some of the youth work issues, though we’ve not always agreed on outcomes.

While I may not be doing any face to face youth work I’ve invested my time in getting involved with Love146 – an organisation that both raises awareness of Child Sex Trafficking and provides on the ground rehabilitation in South East Asia where so many Europeans go on “sex holidays”. Originally I was only asked to provide production for their European launch but the stories and heartbeat of what they do resonated within me and I’m now in the process of forming a task force along with some similarly minded friends in Southampton.

You can read the rest of the post here.

• At The Foot Of The Cross by Kathryn Scott – from Spring Harvest Live 2005 [iTunes][Chords]
• Faithful One by Brian Doerksen – from Acoustic Reflections [iTunes][Chords]
• Hungry by Kathryn Scott – from Acoustic Reflections [iTunes][Chords]
• Majesty (Here I Am) by Martin Smith and Stu G – from Acoustic Reflections [iTunes][Chords]
• Here Is Love by William Rees – from Acoustic Reflections [iTunes][Chords]
• How Deep The Fathers Love by Stuart Townend – from Acoustic Reflections [iTunes][Chords]
• Psalm 13 by Nigel Briggs – from Wonderful Saviour [iTunes]
• Mighty to Save by Hillsong – from Wonderful Saviour [iTunes][Chords]

Hope that helps. What songs do you use in ministry time?

Who says Sound Engineers can't do lighting?

Christmas was great but obviously the best thing has to have been spending time with Rosie even in the dull things like tidying her room, or my room. I’ve finally got my head round both sale shopping and buying Rosie lots of little presents – as well as one or two larger ones. We had one slightly unsuccessful visit to a wedding venue and a great meal with our friends the Moss’s. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to see our friends in Southampton. Still, hopefully we will soon…

Our Christmas was rounded off with the wedding of Chris and Anna who are now happily on honeymoon, in Dubai I think, thanks to you both for letting us be part of your day.

the blog in 2011: over the festive season I’ve been thinking a little bit about the shape of the blog in 2011.

• I’ll be taking some blogging breaks. A week around easter, a week of holiday, from late July until early September and the 4 weeks from December 2011 into 2012.
• I’ve changed the format of the Friday Update slightly (just see below)
• I want to develop the “Church Tech“, “Social Justice” and “Life, Love & Youthwork” sides more.

the weekend to be:
Saturday – I think I’ll be off to Brighton. I’m on the hunt for a new man bag.

Sunday – I’ll be at Arun bright and earlier setting up and preparing for our Sunday service. Peter Horne will be leading musical worship with band. Everyone’s favourite youth worker, Jon Jolly, will be speaking to the Children while Rodney Kingstone will be continuing our Spring 2011 theme of “Come Dine With Me”.

any planned trips next week: Yes, down to Southampton next Tuesday to engineer for an event featuring Rev. Steve Chalke the founder of Oasis Trust. He’s always interesting to listen too and it’ll be especially interesting to hear what he says about Stop The Traffik.

album/artist of the last few weeks: Well, I rediscovered Soulwax and there 1999 album “Much Against Everyone’s Advice” [iTunes] and then while tidying we played an interesting mix of Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” [iTunes], Paramore’s “Brand New Eyes” [iTunes] and Eliza Doolittle’s debut album “Eliza Doolittle” [iTunes]. This week though belongs to British singer/songwriter Nerina Pallot and both her 2005 album “Fires” [iTunes] but more speciffically her song “Idaho“.

blog post of the week: This feature makes a welcome return to the blog. And there are two posts to start off. Firstly, there was a great article written by Joshua Griffin on his MoreThanDodgeball.com entitled “Pad Thai Peace” that really struck a chord with both Rosie and myself. I won’t copy the entire thing but this bit especially made me smile.

My wife and I are the complete opposite in every way – she is introverted, I am extroverted. She loves one-on-one conversations, I love being in the middle of the crowd. She loves ready books alone in front of the fireplace – I love watching movies in the prime seat of a packed, noisy theater. I love LA and Vegas, she enjoys suburbia and the quiet side of life.

In that opposite world there’s one thing we agree on: Pad Thai at Pei Wei.

Read the full article here. Then technology blogger, and Adobe employee, Terry White who has produced a list of his Top 10 gadgets from 2010 here.